Category: It Happened to Me

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It Happened to Me

James Duncan Davidson and Me

The gentleman pictured below is James Duncan Davidson. He’s often seen at conferences where the subject matter can be classified as “Web 2.0”, where’s he’s easy to find: just look for the friendly, smiling redheaded dude with the mega-phallic camera lens. Here he is taking pictures of a panel session at the Ajax Experience:

James Duncan Davidson taking photos at one of the Expert panel sessions at the Ajax Experience, October 2006.

In addition to fast becoming the Annie Leibovitz of the Web 2.0 set, James is also a programmer of note. The trivia question that led to my winning the XBox was “The man with the camera in the front row is well-known in the Java community. In the Java world, what’s he known for?”

I raised my hand first, so I got picked. For a moment, I was tempted to say “He’s known in Java world for defecting to Ruby!“

Sensing that the answer, accurate as it was, would not be accepted, I gave them the answer “He’s known for making ‘Ant‘. The build tool.”

Ben Galbraith, one of the conference organizers and a judge at the trivia contest, looked a little uneasy. “I was thinking of something else, but I think that’s right…

“Oh yeah,” I said, thinking quickly, “…and Tomcat.” Although I’m not really a Java guy, I’ve used Ant many a time, but never Tomcat, so it’s a little off my radar.

Okay, then. You win the XBox 360!

So I tip my hat to Duncan, for playing a role in my shiny new XBox 360.

I also have to thank him for taking this lovely picture of me playing accordion at the Ajax Experience party on Tuesday night. I love this photo: it says “this guy enjoys life.” Mondo thanks, Duncan!

Joey deVilla plays accordion at The Ajax Experience, October 2006. Photo by James Duncan Davidson.
Click the photo to see it on its Flickr page.

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It Happened to Me

XBox 360 Game Recommendations?

XBox 360 core system

As you may have read, I won an XBox 360 core system in a trivia game at the Ajax Experience yesterday (I knew that learning Java development trivia would come in handy someday!).

If you’ve got XBox 360 games that you love, recommend them to me in the comments! I prefer the shootin’, killin’ and adventurin’ games to the sports stuff, and I also like music-based games.

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It Happened to Me

Look Before You Poop

Toilet

Perhaps I’ve become a bit too comfortable in Logan International Airport’s Terminal C.

Terminal C is the terminal I use most often, after the ones in Toronto. Of the airlines that have regular Toronto-Boston routes, Air Canada is probably the best option, both price- and comfort-wise. They tend to use larger and more comfortable jets than the next-best option, American Eagle, and they use Terminal C, which has better restaurants and stores and more available power outlets than Terminal B. It’s also where the Logan branch of Legal Sea Foods, home of some very good “chowdah”, is located.

Yesterday afternoon, I took Brent Ashley to Legal for some chowder and calamari, to thank him for giving me a free pass to the Ajax Experience conference. The “Thai Style” calamari is pretty nice, with its spicy pineapple-and-peanut sauce, but let’s face it: it’s seriously deep-fried and greasily travels through your system like Mario Andretti down a straightaway. Needless to say, I felt nature’s rather urgent call while waiting at the gate and asked Brent to keep an eye on my stuff while I beelined for the bathroom.

I’ve used the bathroom at Terminal C dozens of times, so I navigated my way there on auto-pilot. I saw a set of open stalls, picked one and went about my business.

As I was finishing up, I noticed that the voices of the guys in the room were a little…weird.

That’s when I realized that I’d just taken a crap in the women’s room.

A plane must’ve just landed, because the bathroom got very full. I decided that right then would be a very bad time to emerge from the stall; better by far to wait for a lull. The last thing I needed was a room full of women who might be under the mistaken impression that I was some kind of Japanese toilet pervert who got his jollies listening to women using the bathroom.

I even briefly considered tossing my black blazer over my head in the hopes that it would hide my bearded face and perhaps even fool casual onlookers into thinking I was wearing some kind of chador. Hey, I’ve had stupider ideas.

A few minutes later, I got the lull I was waiting for. I opened the stall door and set a quick but not overly hurried path for the door and crossed the hall into the men’s washroom, where I washed my hands.

Note to self: Look before you poop.

(By the bye, the women’s washroom at Logan is just as poorly-maintained as the men’s.)

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It Happened to Me

The Swag Report, Part 2

Google swag

Over at Global Nerdy, I’ve filed part two of my report on the dot-com-bubble-esque swag and prizes being given away by the vendors and organizers at the Ajax Experience conference. Check it out!

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It Happened to Me

The Swag Report, Part 1

AOL t-shirts for developers

The goodies that they’re giving away at the Ajax Experience conference are pretty sweet — they’re almost at dot-com bubble levels. I’ve got the first part of my swag report over at Global Nerdy.

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It Happened to Me

The Most Popular T-Shirt at the Ajax Experience

Hello from the Ajax Experience conference in Boston!

Not too long ago, you probably couldn’t get a self-respecting software developer to wear an AOL t-shirt (I joked that once upon a time, they’d have been as popular as NAMBLA shirts). However, AOL seems to be embracing the mash-up scene and they’ve cranked out a series of shirts with some geek appeal. I’m modelling the most-requested one here:

Joey deVilla showing off his AOL 'Geek' t-shirt.

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Geek It Happened to Me

My Notes on The Ajax Experience’s Opening Keynote…

…are over at Global Nerdy and the Tucows Blog. Go check them out!